The Godmother
Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women
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Narrated by:
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Barbie Latza Nadeau
About this listen
“The Godmother [is a] crisply written, dutifully researched book exploring the role of women in the…underbelly of Italian life.”—New York Times Book Review
The chilling story of one woman’s rise to prominence in the Italian Mafia, and the as-yet untold stories of the women who followed in her footsteps.
For as long as it has gripped our imaginations, the Mafia has been tied to an ingrained image of masculinity. We learn about "made men," "wiseguys," and "goodfellas" leading criminal organizations whose culture prizes machismo, with women as ancillary and often-powerless characters: trivialized mistresses and long-suffering mob wives. The reality is far more complex.
In The Godmother, investigative journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau tells the stories of the women who have risen to prominence, and fallen out of favor, in the Italian mob, beginning with the most infamous of these women: Pupetta Maresca. A Mafia woman born and raised, Pupetta avenged her husband’s murder, firing 29 shots at the man who killed him.
Woven throughout Pupetta's story is Nadeau's diligent research, and her personal interviews with the Mafia women themselves. Nadeau takes listeners inside the Mafia families to paint a complete and complex portrait of the real culture that has shaped the Mafia, and the women who are part of it.
Leaving behind the stereotypes we know from Mafia movies, The Godmother shows the Mafia in an entirely new light: full-fledged, ruthless, twenty-first-century criminal enterprises led by whoever is strong enough and smart enough to take control.
©2022 Barbie Latza Nadeau (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
One of our 51 Favorite Books of the Year: Washington Independent Review of Books
"This biography of Pupetta is a colorful addition to the canon."–Molly Young, Read Like the Wind Newsletter, The New York Times
"Meet 'Lady Camorra,' one of the first female mafia bosses, as she sips coffee and drums her black-lacquered fingernails on her kitchen table. 'The Godmother' takes the reader into the little-known role of the women that underpin Italy’s most ruthless mob families and are forced to reckon with the social and sexual codes governing the violent reality of mafioso rule."–Sara Gay Forden, author of New York Times bestseller House of Gucci
“In this engrossing account, Nadeau (Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast) combines diligent research, hours of personal interviews, and vivid prose to immerse the reader in the world of Italian Mafia women… This look at the “feminine” side of the Mafia is a must for true crime fans.”–Publishers Weekly Starred Review
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The Real Lolita
- The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World
- By: Sarah Weinman
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved novels ever. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of 11-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the first time. Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.
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Meandering and tedious while never delivering the promised story.
- By Timothy McCarthy on 09-15-18
By: Sarah Weinman
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Gangsters of Harlem
- The Gritty Underworld of New York City's Most Famous Neighborhood
- By: Ron Chepesiuk
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Ron Chepesiuk chronicles the little known history of organized crime in Harlem.
African American organized crime has had as significant an impact on its constituent community as Italian, Jewish, and Irish organized crime has had on theirs. Gangsters are every bit as colorful, intriguing, and powerful as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, and have a fascinating history in gambling, prostitution, and drug dealing. In the late 1800s, Harlem became a highly fashionable neighborhood.
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weak --reader is terrible!
- By Meyer Rosenbloom on 10-18-13
By: Ron Chepesiuk
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Animal
- The Bloody Rise and Fall of the Mob's Most Feared Assassin
- By: Casey Sherman
- Narrated by: Jim Goad
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe Barboza knew that there were two requirements for getting inducted into the Mafia. You had to be Sicilian. And you had to commit a contract killing. The New Bedford-born mobster was a proud Portuguese, not Sicilian, but his dream to be part of La Cosa Nostra proved so strong that he thought he could create a loophole. Barboza’s legacy, buried for years thanks to the murders or deaths of its participants, is finally coming to light and being told in its unvarnished brutality by one of America’s most respected true crime writers.
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Well done. 5 stars.
- By robert price on 03-03-19
By: Casey Sherman
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American Murder Houses
- A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- By: Steve Lehto
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national - and even global - infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "40 whacks", where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation.
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Engaging and engrossing stories.
- By Lila Fowler on 09-14-16
By: Steve Lehto
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The Tangled Web
- The Life and Death of Richard Cain—Chicago Cop and Mafia Hitman
- By: Michael Cain
- Narrated by: Clinton Wade
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Tangled Web tells the dramatic story of detective Richard Cain's criminal career as revealed by his half-brother, Michael. Cain led a double-life—one as a well-known cop who led raids that landed on the front pages, and the other as a "made man" in one of Chicago's most notorious mob families.
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Reviews
- By G. D. Hoppe on 11-19-20
By: Michael Cain
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Gaspipe
- Confessions of a Mafia Boss
- By: Philip Carlo
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than 50 murders. Currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado, Casso has given journalist and New York Times best-selling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen.
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The author fails the objectivity test
- By William on 11-29-08
By: Philip Carlo
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Undisclosed Files of the Police
- Cases from the Archives of the NYPD from 1831 to the Present
- By: Bernard Whalen, Philip Messing, Robert Mladinich
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 175 years of true crimes culled from the city's police blotter, told through an insightful text by two NYPD officers and a NYC crime reporter. From atrocities that occurred before the establishment of New York's police force in 1845 through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 to the present day, this audio is an insider's look at more than 80 real-life crimes that shocked the nation, from arson to gangland murders, robberies, serial killers, bombings, and kidnappings.
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Good History of Crime in NYC
- By Bob Shinders on 03-10-17
By: Bernard Whalen, and others
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The Corporation
- An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.
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uncle joey approved
- By Anonymous User on 04-14-18
By: T. J. English
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The First Family
- Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia
- By: Mike Dash
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Before the Five Families who so notoriously dominated U.S. organized crime for a bloody half-century, there was the one-fingered, surpassingly cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Born into a life of poverty in rural Sicily, Morello became an American nightmare, pioneering the bizarre initiation rituals, imaginative protection rackets, influential underworld reigns, and Mafia wars later popularized by countless books, television shows, and movies.
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The truth about the origins of the American mafia
- By J. Sovar on 01-09-13
By: Mike Dash
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Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
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An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
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Nemesis
- One Man and the Battle for Rio
- By: Misha Glenny
- Narrated by: Zach Villa
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Nemesis is the story of an ordinary man who became the king of the largest slum in Rio, the head of a drug cartel, and perhaps Brazil's most wanted criminal. It's a gripping tale of gold hunters and evangelical pastors, bent police and rich-kid addicts, quixotic politicians and drug lords with math degrees. Traversing through rain forests and high-security prisons, filthy slums and glittering shopping malls, this is also the story of how change came to Brazil.
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Amazing sobriety
- By Fabio Azeredo on 04-29-16
By: Misha Glenny
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Hitler's Children
- Sons and Daughters of Third Reich Leaders
- By: Gerald Posner
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Göring. Hess. Mengele. Dönitz. Names that conjure up dark memories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. They were the architects of the Third Reich. And they were fathers. Gerald Posner convinced 11 sons and daughters of Hitler's inner circle to break their silence. This second generation of perpetrators in Hitler's Children struggle with their Third Reich inheritance. In grappling with memories of good and loving fathers who were later charged with war crimes, these heirs to the Nazi legacy add a fresh and important perspective.
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Couldn’t put it down!
- By Art Guzman on 02-11-18
By: Gerald Posner
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Death in the City of Light
- The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris
- By: David King
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Death in the City of Light is the gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. The main suspect was Dr. Marcel Petiot, a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma.
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Too many facts too little story
- By Caitanya on 09-27-11
By: David King
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The Anatomy of Motive
- The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
- By: John Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Anatomy of Motive offers a dramatic, insightful look at the development and evolution of the criminal mind. The famed former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, John Douglas was the pioneer of modern behavioral profiling of serial criminals. Working again with acclaimed novelist, journalist, and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, and using cases from his own fabled career as examples, Douglas takes us further than ever before into the dark corners of the minds of arsonists, hijackers, bombers, poisoners, serial killers, and mass murderers.
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Smuckers jelly narration. Still good.
- By Thad Ames on 11-07-17
By: John Douglas, and others
What listeners say about The Godmother
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. Gossard
- 09-14-22
Words punching the air
The speaker’s style was distracting to the story. She punched out words for emphasis like a orchestra conductor uses their baton. I felt the individual women’s stories were interesting but were somewhat difficult to track.
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- Peter Garik
- 09-12-22
Not what I thought but excellent neverthless
I had thought this book was along the lines of “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo— realistic fiction, charming and entertaining. It is not like that at all. This is serious work of investigative journalism, factual, well written and also very interesting. Very sobering. Excellent, I highly recommend.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Midwest Man
- 10-29-22
A waste of research
A very simplistic book. Could have been much better given the author’s research. Instead, the author provides us with a series of simple anecdotes. No systematic work on the subject. Not worth the money spent.
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